Thursday, January 12, 2006

What I Hate About Interviewing

I actually don’t mind interviewing that much. It’s kind of fun. But there are a few things that drive me nuts about it. One of them happened to me today.

You know how sometimes, when you’re in the middle of a conversation, your brain will suddenly sort of…fart? And blow every intelligent thought you ever had right out and leave you sitting there wondering what’s going on?

Oh yes. {raises hand} Happened to me today.

So. We’re sitting there, and first off they asked me what tools I used to write SQL.

And my brain went: fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffwap!

It left me with nothing. I’m sitting there like a moron.

OK, here’s what they meant by ‘what tools I used to write SQL’, choose any of these: Query Analyzer, SQL Navigator, PL/SQL, Notepad, the query grid in Access, the smart guy across the hall.

But my brain got stuck on something like this: “Whaddya mean, what ‘tools’ do I use? It’s SQL, stupid, you know, SELECT-FROM-WHERE-HAVING-GROUP BY, you don’t need a tool to do that!!”

**sigh**

Eventually, after a shockingly long period of flailing and much help from the interviewers, it occurred to me what they were actually asking and I began attempting to maneuver my brain in that direction.

But wait! It gets worse! Because the fart had so utterly emptied my brain of sense that I couldn’t think of the two words Query Analyzer.

So what came out of my lips? What stunningly brilliant thing did I say, describing the tools I used to mess around with invaluable data?

“Oh, I can totally see it…it’s the one with the colors, where the ‘SELECT’ turns blue and if you’ve got a stupid semicolon in the wrong place it turns red…”

**groan**

Oh yeah. Sheer brilliance. Quick, get this kid a corner office, she’s golden. Knows all her colors, she’s like a total graduate student from Sesame Street University. Now, can we count to twenty as well, or are we still working on that…?

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

ROFLOL.Sorry, but that's FUNNY, Tama.

I usually brain fart in front of groups of 20 or more...uhhh.

I'm sure that the interviewers know; people get nervous in interviews! I'm sure they realize that your last employer would not have kept you on for years if you didn't know what you were doing or couldn't communicate it!